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Clinicopathological features of young patients (<35 years of age) with breast cancer in a Japanese Breast Cancer Society supported study

  • Special Feature
  • Breast cancer in young women: Issues and perspectives regarding patients' and survivors' care
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Abstract

Background

To clarify the clinicopathological features of breast cancer in young females, surveillance data of the Registration Committee of the Japanese Breast Cancer Society were analyzed.

Methods

The clinicopathological characteristics were compared between young (<35) patients and non-young (≥35) patients among 109,617 records registered between 2004 and 2009.

Results

The numbers of young and non-young patients were 2,982 (2.7 %) and 106,295 (97.0 %), respectively. The young patients had more cases of a familial history of breast cancer, more subjective symptoms, fewer bilateral tumors, lower BMIs, larger tumors, more positive lymph nodes, fewer instances of an ER-positive status, more instances of an HER2-positive status, more triple-negative tumors and more advanced TNM stages. The young patients more frequently received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and breast-conserving therapy (BCT) compared with the non-young patients. Eighty percent of all patients received adjuvant therapy. The young patients were more frequently treated with chemotherapy, molecular targeted therapy and radiation therapy than the non-young patients.

Conclusions

In this study, young patients with breast cancer were diagnosed at more advanced stages and had more endocrine-unresponsive tumors than non-young patients. Further prognostic analyses should be conducted in this cohort.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Mr. Naohito Fukui, the NPO Japan Clinical Research Support Unit staff and the Japanese Breast Cancer Society for their collaboration on this study and their ongoing development, maintenance and improvement of this registry. This work was supported by a research fund from the Japanese Breast Cancer Society.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Breast Surgery Clinic, 2nd Floor YCC-Takanawa Building, 2-21-43 Takanawa, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 108-0074, Japan

    Akemi Kataoka

  2. Department of Surgery and Science, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Eriko Tokunaga

  3. Department of Surgery, Breast Oncology, National Hospital Organization Osaka National Hospital, Osaka, Osaka, Japan

    Norikazu Masuda

  4. Department of Breast and Endocrine Surgery, Okayama University Hospital, Okayama, Japan

    Tadahiko Shien

  5. Department of Nursing School of Health and Social Services, Saitama Prefectural University, Koshigaya, Saitama, Japan

    Kimiko Kawabata

  6. Division of Nursing Science, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan

    Mika Miyashita

Authors
  1. Akemi Kataoka
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  2. Eriko Tokunaga
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  3. Norikazu Masuda
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  4. Tadahiko Shien
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  5. Kimiko Kawabata
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  6. Mika Miyashita
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Akemi Kataoka.

Additional information

Special Feature organized by Dr. Chikako Shimizu.

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Kataoka, A., Tokunaga, E., Masuda, N. et al. Clinicopathological features of young patients (<35 years of age) with breast cancer in a Japanese Breast Cancer Society supported study. Breast Cancer 21, 643–650 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12282-013-0466-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12282-013-0466-2

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